The 2020 Presidential General Election thread

Discussion in 'The Red Room' started by Order2Chaos, Jun 17, 2020.

  1. Steal Your Face

    Steal Your Face Anti-Federalist

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    What state legislature requested it? What insurrection or rebellion is going on? Furthermore, I’m in favor of states’ rights so if these governors or mayors want to see their cities burn, that’s their prerogative.:shrug: Doesn’t mean I agree with it and even so it’s still the president’s duty to quell that type of division. The insurrection act is not a free pass to be a tin pot dictator like Trump wants to be.
    Last edited: Jun 27, 2020
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  2. Marso

    Marso High speed, low drag.

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    ...And, notice how the armed forces haven't been called in. So what's your beef? :wtf:

    Oh, I forgot. Trump is worse than Hitler. :rolleyes: :dayton:
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  3. Steal Your Face

    Steal Your Face Anti-Federalist

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    Didn’t say Trump was worse than Hitler. If Trump is a Republican, he isn’t, then he should favor limited government, should he not?
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  4. Elwood

    Elwood I know what I'm about, son.

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    In many ways, comparing retired military Flag Officers and CIA directors are comparing apples and watermelons. But, the first DCI that "got political" ended up as President of the United States.
  5. Bailey

    Bailey It's always Christmas Eve Super Moderator

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    Exactly why I chose that as an example. If you want to restrict it to just former military though it seems many of your presidents have gone from military to speaking speaking out politically.
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  6. Asyncritus

    Asyncritus Expert on everything

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    Yep. Starting with George Washington. There are plenty of others.
  7. Nova

    Nova livin on the edge of the ledge Writer

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    TBH, the BIG proportion of the known things which were not just wrong with but straight up dangerous about Trump were already well documented in the mainstream press over previous decades.People like Sarah Kendzior and others were out there pulling their hair out in 2016 say "Go read your own damn stories!"

    But they were not forwarded into the election ecosystem by any major publications in 2016 because, one can only assume, it was taken as a given that Trump couldn't possibly actually win and the best way to get a true horserace election, of the sort that drives revenue, was to level the credibility of the choices - softpedal Trumps real and documented problems while magnifying the fuck out of relatively minor issues with Clinton (not to say Clinton didn't have a history but the Foundation, the e-mails, her supposed health problems, and Benghazi was all irrelevant minor shit treated as major news - repeatedly)
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  8. tafkats

    tafkats scream not working because space make deaf Moderator

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    What -- of the eleven debates he's taken part in over the past 12 months? I think you can find them.
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  9. Tererune

    Tererune Troll princess and Magical Girl

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    It is just a lie all the time with marso. There is not even a discussion with him. He is the new fleshlight. Joe has actually been lucent and able to speak well in the recent past. Joe can certainly shout down a loudmouth because he can be a loudmouth. He can certainly take Trump in a debate considering if you blow trump's cadence he really does babble much more incoherently. Trump does not know when to shut up or what not to say so anything could happen.

    We better get the old man debates for all we have gone through this year. If trump backs out or quits that is going to be terrible.
  10. Bickendan

    Bickendan Custom Title Administrator Faceless Mook Writer

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  11. Tuckerfan

    Tuckerfan BMF

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  12. Asyncritus

    Asyncritus Expert on everything

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  13. tafkats

    tafkats scream not working because space make deaf Moderator

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    What do you bet that by the convention, whether the situation has changed or not, De Santis comes up with an excuse to override the city's rules and force them to let Trump do whatever he wants?
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  14. Bailey

    Bailey It's always Christmas Eve Super Moderator

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    Yup, which is why we know his 2016 supporters must be overjoyed, because what Trump is like now is exactly what you would expect from what was already known about him before he was elected.
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  15. Bailey

    Bailey It's always Christmas Eve Super Moderator

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    If it comes to it they'll just not wear masks and ignore the rule.
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  16. Asyncritus

    Asyncritus Expert on everything

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    Yes and no.

    For one thing, though I knew he was mean, petty, lying, obnoxious, arrogant, racist, abusive and selfish, I did not realize how thoroughly incompetent and lazy he is.

    For another thing, I fully expected the Democrats to control the Senate, and thus keep him in line.

    That's why, in 2016, I considered the two major candidates equally unacceptable. Hillary Clinton is a lying, arrogant, manipulating, power-hungry war-monger, and I didn't want her in the White House, either. But with what I know now, I would definitely consider Hillary the lesser of two evils.

    I still maintain, though, that with the Republicans controlling both houses of congress, Sanders would have been a better president than either Clinton or Trump. His supporters are, on average, the most unbearable group of Democrats I have seen, but Sanders himself appears to be fairly honorable. Much more so, in any case, than Clinton or Trump. Besides, I actually support quite a number of his positions. (Though I wish he was honest enough to really admit how much they would cost, and how thoroughly they would require re-structuring American society in order to implement them.)
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  17. Order2Chaos

    Order2Chaos Ultimate... Immortal Administrator

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    New polling in swing states on 538. https://fivethirtyeight.com/feature...umps-electoral-college-advantage-is-slipping/

    There's next to no good news here for Trump. Iowa is more solidly for him, and national polls are slightly up from their worst. Nothing else has swung his way.

    Now, because I believe in the power of the undecided voter (and believe that they'll break for Trump as much as before), I went ahead and did all the calculations I did on the 5/1-6/11 polls on these new polls (or rather, I plugged all the numbers and formulae into a Google Sheets doc). I'm not exactly jumping for joy the way I might be if the raw polling was accurate, but it's encouraging for sure.

    My map:
    [​IMG]

    Whoa, what happened there? Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are now, to varying degrees, in Biden's column. Biden +0.3 in GA, +3.4 in PA (up from -3.6 last time), and +0.5 in WI. Also notable is that NM and NV are Biden +>10, MN is now Biden between +5 and +10. I still expect OH and NC to go for Trump despite Biden's raw numbers advantage there; the undecideds are just too numerous and Trumpy. Though it's still the same color, FL is now much more solidly for Biden, +3.7 vs +0.03 before. AZ, too, to a lesser extent, up to Biden +2.1 from +1.0.

    Note that 538 didn't report district-level data for ME and NE; I've just given Trump all of NE. All other states not on the list above come from 270towin's map.

    BTW if anyone wants me to plug in their favorite poll aggregator's results into my spreadsheet and spit out a map, I'll be happy to do that.

    Edit: table formatting
    Last edited: Jun 30, 2020
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  18. Order2Chaos

    Order2Chaos Ultimate... Immortal Administrator

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    Of the light blue states, Biden needs to win Florida; or Georgia or Pennsylvania and any other state besides NH. AZ + WI doesn't win it, but AZ + WI + NH ties it. Everything else is gravy.
  19. Ancalagon

    Ancalagon Scalawag Administrator Formerly Important

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    So on Election Day 2016 the RealClearPolitics polling aggregator had Hillary at +3.2 nationally (and falling) and 538s adjusted poll aggregator had her at +3.8 (and falling). Hillary ended up winning the national vote by +2.3. So the polls were off by .9-1.5. Considering polls are a lagging indicator and they all showed her lead diminishing leading up the election (thanks Comey?) it seems the polls were pretty on.

    Currently RCP’s aggregator has Biden at +9.2 and 538’s +9.6.

    Now obviously Trump was able to win the White House due to the Electoral College. However what I’ve read is that mathematically a +6 Biden victory would be enough to overcome even the worst Electoral College fuckery. We’ll see.

    The good news for Biden is that both national and almost every swing state is leaning more Biden than they ever did Hillary. In many swing states Biden is over 50% which is significant because it means even if the undecideds go to Trump Biden can still win. The worry is that right now a lot of polls are going off Registered Voters, not Likely Voters.

    We are still a long way from the election but things are definitely looking better for Biden than they did for Hillary at this point.
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  20. Ancalagon

    Ancalagon Scalawag Administrator Formerly Important

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    For the Presidential election. I think to really move on as a country we need a Biden landslide. Trumpism needs to be demolished so that the Rs realize it is a losing electoral strategy and the Dems need to take the Senate so that they can actually accomplish something and show that voting D will actually get stuff done.
    Last edited: Jun 30, 2020
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  21. Order2Chaos

    Order2Chaos Ultimate... Immortal Administrator

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    It all depends on distribution. A 10 point swing for Biden in CA adjusts the national polls a lot more than a 3 point swing in TX, but only the latter matters.

    Yep. If registered voters don’t convert, 50%+ is surmountable.

    Agreed.
  22. We Are Borg

    We Are Borg Republican Democrat

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    Looks like Tammy Duckworth is in the running as Biden's VP. Here's a short video by VoteVets that gives her background:



    I don't know a lot about her, and she may turn off some voters, but she could certainly eat Pence's lunch when it comes to sacrificing for one's country.
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  23. Asyncritus

    Asyncritus Expert on everything

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    Part of me agrees with this. I would love to see the Republicans thoroughly demolished in November. Trump is a disgusting stain on American honour, and the Senate giving him a blank cheque the way they did is just about as bad.

    But part of me doesn't want to see the Democrats controlling everything, either. I can be thoroughly anti-Republican without being pro-Democrat.
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  24. Minsc&Boo

    Minsc&Boo Fresh Meat

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    The power of Asyncritus couldn't be undone!
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  25. Ancalagon

    Ancalagon Scalawag Administrator Formerly Important

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    Realistically the best case scenario for Dems is a 53 or 54 majority in the Senate. Enough of them will be in swing states that it is not like the AOC Agenda will just be rubber stamped.

    However at this time Republicans are not good faith partners. There is zero chance of a Republican controlled Senate passing some of the stuff we need to hold our nation together. Namely healthcare and restoring the Voting Rights Act (note SCOTUS explicitly said the protections in it were constitutional, it was just only applying them to southern states that was unconstitutional. They told Congress to fix that part but of course the Republicans just sat on it).
    Last edited: Jul 2, 2020
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  26. T.R

    T.R Don't Care

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  27. Ancalagon

    Ancalagon Scalawag Administrator Formerly Important

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    That was one poll.

    Quite a bit different from the average of polls showing near double digits. Multiple polls have Biden leading by double digits.

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/national/

    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_biden-6247.html
  28. Ancalagon

    Ancalagon Scalawag Administrator Formerly Important

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  29. T.R

    T.R Don't Care

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    Same as it did with Hillary....

    Bloomberg Hillary + 12
    Reuters Hillary +10
    ABC News/Washington post Hillary + 12
    All three from June

    Also in June, Nate Silver at one point gave Hillary an 80 percent chance of winning.

    I'm not saying that Biden isn't ahead, because he is. But I don't think it's anywhere near by that much.
  30. Ancalagon

    Ancalagon Scalawag Administrator Formerly Important

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    No, the averages didn’t have Hillary up by as much as Biden is now even when it spiked.

    Here is RCP’s averages from 2016 as a comparison.
    As you can see Hillary never got more than 7 points from Trump (and that was very briefly) and never got over 50%.

    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/e...s/general_election_trump_vs_clinton-5491.html
    Last edited: Jul 1, 2020